Where Stories Are Made: Thomas Emson

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Where Stories Are Made is a new feature here at Book Chick City. It's where the author takes us on a tour of their writing place, be it an office, coffee shop or park and tells us about their writing day and rituals. My guest today is horror writer, Thomas Emson...

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I start writing when I start. There’s no specific time. We are up early because the dog needs walking, the rabbits need cleaning out, and the cat needs feeding. We’ll have breakfast and I’ll watch some television (I think it’s otherwise known as procrastination). If she’s working, my wife (writer and journalist Marnie Summerfield Smith) has already switched on her computer.

We share a study. Our desks are back-to-back. Books and papers are piled everywhere. It’s pretty crammed. After making us a third cup of tea, I meander into the study. Because I’m writing two books a year till 2012 for Snowbooks, deadlines are vital for me. I have six months to write a novel, from start to finish. For the first draft, which is quite messy, I have a weekly word target – 10,000 a week.

A weekly target is better than a daily one. If you miss your daily target, you feel irritated. But miss a day if you’ve got a weekly target, and you can always catch up. Sometimes I’ll write seven days a week, sometimes four – as long as I hit 10,000 words, it’s fine. I work from an outline, the product of about a fortnight’s work. As I say, I plough through the first draft. I write straight on the laptop in Arial 14pt. The draft is ugly. Very rough. I write notes as I go along. I put “blah blah blah” if I can’t think of anything to write, and just move on to the next scene. If I need to check something – like the make of a car or the name of a street – I’ll just put “xxxxxxxx” in the manuscript where the make or the name should be.

Our cat, Griff, sitting in my chair looking at my desk

My day finishes when I feel like it. I’ll try to do a decent amount of words, at least 1,000, but it isn’t necessary when you’ve got a weekly target. By lunchtime, I’m done. I might squeeze a few more words out after eating, but to be honest, I’m ready to do something else: read or watch TV, or take the dog out.

The first draft takes me eight-to-ten weeks, maybe a little more. Then, I’ll take a week out. Write something else maybe. After that, I’m ready to attack the manuscript. It’s a job of honing, of sculpting, of chopping, of cutting, of adding. The Arial 14pt becomes Times New Roman 12pt. The mess is divided into chapters and the chapters given names. It’s the most difficult part of writing a book, but the most honest part. It’s where your story is unearthed. I’ve learned recently never to trust a first draft. The second draft is where you find your truths. Draft two can take up to eight weeks. I’ll then spend a few weeks tidying it up, producing a third, perhaps a fourth draft. Then, I email it to Snowbooks, take a week off, and start on the next book.

The second photo shows how I plotted 'Zombie Britannica'. Because the book tells three separate stories, they had to be weaved together. I wrote them separately, then scribbled down each scene on coloured notepaper: yellow for the English story; pink for the Welsh story; blue for the Scottish story. After doing that, I weaved them all together and stuck them on a sheet of paper, which is shown in the photo.

I was a journalist for twenty years so I’m used to deadlines. It can get tough, though, and I feel the pressure sometimes. But then I think, I’m a writer not a soldier in Afghanistan or a surgeon carrying out life-saving operations – that’s pressure. And after all, it’s what I love doing.I’m not doing it full-time yet. I still do a little journalism to pay the bills. One day it would be great to go full-time, but most writers do have other jobs.

People ask where I get my inspiration from, but to be honest I don’t believe in inspiration. To me, writing is a job. A carpenter can’t wait for inspiration. Neither can a plumber. And Philip Pullman’s quote is pinned to the wall of our study:

"An amateur thinks that to be a professional, one must wait for inspiration. A professional knows that if one waited for inspiration, one would be an amateur."

That inspires me. It gets me to my desk. It makes me sit down and write, even if I’m not in the mood. You can always write something – even if it’s “blah blah blah”. I think a lot of starting writers worry about their first draft. They try to polish the first page and without ever getting to the end of it. They fret over things, over every word. Forget it. Just finish your draft. Get to the end and love the mess you’ve created. Take a few days off before going back to it and then you can start to chisel and craft.

The outline I did for 'Maneater'

After I’ve completed my eight-book deal with Snowbooks in 2012, I’m not sure what’ll happen. I’ll definitely be writing, but I may commit to only one book a year. I have other stuff I want to write. I’d like to try my hand at screenplays and comicbook scripts, but at the moment it’s difficult to squeeze everything in.

But I do love writing and telling stories – however, I love other people reading them more. Some people say, Even if no one ever published me or no one read my stories, I’d still write. I’m not convinced by that. The point of a story is to share it. You don’t tell yourself a story. That’s self-indulgent, surely. Storytelling is about readers (or listeners, maybe) as well as writers. Without readers/listeners you don’t have a story. I write to be read. I write to entertain. I love hearing from readers, and so far all the responses I’ve had have been positive. Most of the reviews I’ve received have been good.

At the moment I’ve just started writing Pariah, my fifth novel for Snowbooks. It’s about Jack The Ripper in 21st Century London. It’s a standalone and I’m looking forward to writing it. As you read this, I’m working on an outline and I’ll probably start the first draft in a week or so. And that means back to the usual routine for another six months.

Thomas Emson

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Website | Goodreads | Twitter

Prey: out now

Skarlet: out now

Zombie Britannica: out Aug 2010

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**Next week on 'Where Stories Are Made': Angie Fox**

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